A special forces general who believes that homosexuals are “not normal” and that black people cannot be truly Italian is emerging as Matteo Salvini’s secret weapon in his battle with Giorgia Meloni for votes.
Salvini, leader of the League party, a junior partner in Meloni’s right-wing coalition, has asked General Roberto Vannacci to stand as a candidate for his party at the European parliament elections in June as he attempts to beef up his hard-right support.
Salvini took 34 per cent of votes at European elections in 2019 during his tub thumping, anti-migrant tenure as the interior minister but since then he has been overshadowed by Meloni’s success, with his popularity with voters shrinking below 10 per cent.
Trying to take advantage of the prime minister’s shift to more moderate, pro-European Union policies since she took office in 2022, Salvini is now wooing her voter base and wants Vannacci’s help.
The veteran of special forces operations in Somalia and Afghanistan grabbed headlines last year with his book The World Upside Down, in which he argued that derogatory words for homosexuals such as “frocio” — meaning “faggot” — should not be frowned on, while he defended a person’s right “to hate and to disrespect”.
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In his book, which has sold 230,000 copies, Vannacci also queries whether people of colour could ever be Italian, even if they were born in Italy and held citizenship. Citing a member of Italy’s volleyball team, Paola Egonu, who was born in Italy to Nigerian parents, he wrote that the sportswoman was “an Italian citizen but her features don’t reflect Italianness”.
Vannacci is being sued by Egonu and this week he was suspended by the Italian army for 11 months. He is also being investigated for fiddling expenses during his time as the military attaché to the Italian embassy in Moscow in 2021-22, allegations that he denies.
Responding to Vannacci’s suspension, Salvini wrote on Twitter/X: “The situation is ridiculous. How scared are they of the general?”
Salvini may be a member of Meloni’s cabinet but the two are wary allies, not least because Salvini is a partner in Europe with Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, while Meloni has forged ties with the centrist European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.
Despite serving in the same Italian government, Meloni and Salvini will compete against each other in the EU elections, with the prime minister expected to win more votes. That would increase the chances of Salvini being challenged for leadership by politicians in the League party’s northern heartlands, who have never felt comfortable with his brand of populism.
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“We want a progressive League which is not right or left but focused on the local issues,” said Roberto Marcato, a League official in the Veneto region. “Certainly not a League with Roberto Vannacci.”
